Dogs willingly fight with other dogs or other spec

Fighting dogs and warrior dogs both probably evolved from
livestock guarding dogs and this too needed more of our intervention, not just
in selectively breeding for massive size but also for both ferocity and
obedience.

Dog fighting has existed as a “sport” for as long as we’ve
lived with dogs. Livestock guarding breeds, already massive in size, were ideal
for selectively breeding for other attributes that would be useful in a
fighting dog, for example dense, protective hair and thick skin. They were also
now bred for attitude, for an inclination to keep on fighting, in war or in
sport, to go for the neck, to go for the kill. The Roman army certainly used
military dogs, the British-bred Pugnaces Britanniae, and when these dogs were
not serving in Roman wars they were used in dog fight contests.

Although they are now technically illegal in most countries,
dog fights are still widely organised including in one of the cradles of the
dog’s evolution, rural Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Dog fighting is common
in Russia where owtcharkas, massive sheep guarding dogs are used. In Spain,
mastiffs were used as was the Presa Canario both in mainland Spain and in the
Canary Islands. In Argentina and some parts of Brazil, dogs such as the Dogo
Argentino and Fila Brasileiro were developed specifically for fighting as was
the now extinct Dogo Cubano in Cuba. The Japanese Samurai retained their
aggressive image during peaceful times through dog fights. Fighting was
particularly popular in Akita Prefecture and in present day Kochi Prefecture
(once called Tosa Province). Even in Muslim countries where dogs are culturally
disliked, dog fighting takes place. As in Europe and North America, young men
in Arab countries now primarily use Pit Bull terriers and Rottweilers. (By the Middle
Ages some mastiffs had become butcher’s dogs. This is the origin of the
Rottweiler. Dogs such as these went on to be used for bull-baiting and
dog-fighting.) In the Middle East the fighting dogs are caged, starved and
abused before they’re used in fights. Someone who is familiar with dog fights
in Oman tells me their wounds are seldom treated and become infested with
maggots. Dogs that lose fights are brutally killed or left to starve to death
in cages.

Dogs work as draft animals?

You know what the most
common dog problem is, the question dog trainers are most frequently asked??“How
do I stop my dog from pulling on his lead?”?Wired into your dog’s brain is the
imperative, “Resist!” Tug on your dog’s lead and unless he’s been trained not
to do so, he’ll just yank you in the opposite direction. People have known this
for millennia which is why an original dog job was to pull sleds or travois.

The Inuit’s ancestors were accompanied by dogs as they
spread from Far East Asia across Alaska and Canada until they reached as far
east as Greenland. No one knows for sure when they harnessed the pulling power
of dogs (Inuit folk history says this happened over 2,000 years ago.) but the
sled dog remained at the fulcrum of their survival until well into the 20th
century. Farther south, Native Americans on the Great Plains of Canada and the
United States harnessed the power of dogs to pull their travois, sleds made
from two long poles connected by rawhide to a frame. At the same time dogs in
Switzerland and Belgium were routinely used as cart pullers. Big dogs have
helped us travel or carried our loads for at least a thousand years and they do
so instinctively. That function disappeared in my lifetime not because they
didn’t have the intelligence to adapt to modern needs but rather because we
found more efficient ways to move goods.

Captain R.E. Peary, who reached the North Pole in 1909, (at
least he says he did) depended on Eskimo sled dogs and credited his reaching
the Pole to the dogs. In his book recounting his adventure he wrote, “…it is an
absolute certainty that it [the North Pole] would still be undiscovered but for
the Eskimo dog to furnish traction power for our sledges … enabling us to carry
supplies where nothing else could carry them.”